New Survey: Bullied Workers Cannot Stop the Bullying

April 26, 2012 - PRLog -- The Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) has surveyed online 1,598 individuals personally familiar with workplace bullying. They described strategies adopted to stop their bullying and the effectiveness of each strategy.

The strategies ranged from doing nothing (hoping time alone will make the bullying stop) to confronting the bully, reporting the bullying to the bully’s boss or to human resources or to senior management or to the union, or contacting attorneys or government anti-discrimination agencies or filing a lawsuit (possible in cases where illegal harassment is present).

The baseline rate of effectiveness – of doing nothing – was 3.3%. That is, just waiting is counterproductive for bullied individuals in 96.75% of cases!

Most workplace “experts” advise bullied targets to do something to stop the bullying. The results of this large-sample survey are clear – nothing the targeted person tries seems to effectively stops the bullying.

The effectiveness scores were as follows:  Confronting the bully 3.6%; Telling the bully’s boss 3.3%;  Senior management 3.7%;  HR 4.7%;  Union 8.8%;  Complaint with government agency 11.9%;  Attorneys 11.2%; and Filing a lawsuit  16.4%. When there is no discrimination, failure occurs for at least 95% of workers trying to fix their bullying problem.

“This survey quantifies the problem with expecting victims of psychological violence at work to reverse their situations,” says Dr. Gary Namie, WBI Director. “The targets of bullying neither invited nor deserved their torment. Let’s stop holding victims responsible for decisions out of their control. Only employers can stop the bullying.”

Complete survey results can be found at

http://www.workplacebullying.org/2012/04/20/effectiveness/